Sunday, April 7, 2013

You Tell My Wife That Multitasking Is A Myth

We do a lot of our
coaching work using the Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument that is an
assessment that determines what are the dominant preferences in your brain for
the way you think. The neuroscience of the brain has become quite popular
recently and has also crept into the world of coaching and leadership.

With neuroscience comes
the concept of multitasking. I remember the conversation with Mary, as well as
my daughter Megan, about the research that suggests that multitasking is a
myth. They both were quite adamant when I shared the research that it must have
been written by a man. Much of the early material written on multitasking
suggests that women are better at multitasking than men. And with two granddaughters
this family may have added two more believers to the multitasking myth.

A book by Dave Crenshaw
titled “The Myth of Multitasking: How ‘Doing It All’ Gets Nothing Done” further
supports the perspective that any multitasking takes longer than if we did each
task individually. In the book, we are introduced to the concept of
"switchtasking." This happens when we try to perform two or more
tasks at the same time that require mental effort. We tend to believe that we
can do more than one thing at a time. This is the lie. The human mind can
consciously concentrate on only one thing at a time. Of course my wife and
daughter would remind me that I am just another male writing about
multitasking.

Switchtasking is the
process of switching between tasks. This is what we are doing when we think we
are multi-tasking. Jumping from one task to another (Switchtasking) is a less
effective and efficient way to get things done. This adds to our inability to
focus.

William Stixrud a
Neuropsychologist suggests, “The brain is a lot like a computer. You may have
several screens open on your desktop, but you’re able to think about only one
at a time.” Next time you find yourself in multitasking mode add to the
multiple tasks you believe you are doing simultaneously and analyze if you are
truly doing multiple tasks at once or maybe just inefficiently switching from
one task to another.